Starting to talk

by Editor · August 31, 2005

Social communications is the term the Catholic Church uses to describe its means of speaking to the faithful and the world.

In the days of that great evangeliser St Paul, the medium of communicating ideas to a wider audience was the epistle, or letter.

Today, whenever the pope makes a public statement, formally or informally, it is distributed to the public through various media, such as newspapers, radio, television, or the Internet.

Some Church leaders are better at communicating the Church’s mission than others. Pope John Paul II knew the value of social communications, and how to handle the media to get his message across. Sometimes this would require populist actions (for which, as an actor, he was abundantly skilled), other times he would do so with much sophistication in media such as encyclicals. The late pontiff even employed the medium of poetry to communicate his ideas.

Some bishops employ full-time media officers to facilitate effective media coverage.

Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu had aides who knew how best to deploy the archbishop’s charisma in the media. It is no accident that Archbishop Tutu is perhaps the world’s best-known cleric, after the pope. Catholics who may not even know the name of their own bishop will know the name of the retired Anglican archbishop of Cape Town.

Time was, in the 1980s, when the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference was emphatically engaged in the social communications apostolate, even affording the department dealing with this mission the priority status of a commission.

Since the demise of apartheid, social communications were gradually deprioritised, to the point that, at one stage, only one part-time person was responsible for the bishops’ media.

The situation has improved somewhat in the past few years, and signs are that the bishops are beginning to place a higher value again on the Church’s capacity of speaking to the people. In this they were doubtlessly encouraged by the unforeseen extent of media interest in matters Catholic during the time between Pope John Paul’s final days and the election of Pope Benedict.

It is encouraging that Johannesburg’s Archbishop Buti Tlhagale has set in motion the establishment of a Diocesan Communication Agency.

Likewise, the SACBC’s Media Advisory Committee, which was set up in the mid-1990s, is now seeking a more dynamic role in advancing the Church’s presence in the media.

All these developments are hopeful signs that the local Church is getting serious about social communications.

This is as it should be. The local Church must find the means of communicating its message to the faithful, through Catholic and secular media. As one veteran journalist once said: “How can the Church not afford to speak about itself.” Social Communications are the chief means of evangelisation.

Of course, social communications initiatives cost money, and so they compete with many other worthy projects for funding. This is why on September 4 the bishops ask parishes to have a second collection – unpopular though these are.

The commitment of the parish priests and the generosity of the faithful will help the Church to amplify the Good News to the people of Southern Africa.

Vatican II, in its decree on Social Communications Inter Mirifica (1963), counsels that the social communications apostolate is every Catholic’s business: “All the children of the Church should join, without delay and with the greatest effort in a common work to make effective use of the media of social communication in various apostolic endeavours, as circumstances and conditions demand.”

Let Social Communications Sunday remind all Catholics of this sacred duty.